Las Vegas Shooter Update

There's been all sorts of news updates on Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock over the weekend, none of which seem to offer a clue into his behavior.

One worthwhile interview I saw was that of Steve Wynn, the billionaire owner of many Las Vegas hotels. (Corrected: He built the Mirage but no longer owns it.) He said his staff was very familiar with both Paddock and Marilou Danley and they were as "vanilla" as could be -- no flags at all.

He says Paddock didn’t run up debts or have a gambling problem. Wynn said butlers, waiters and massage employees knew Paddock and his girlfriend.

The main thrust of his interview was the difference in security tactics at the Mirage and other hotels. [More...]

A person who has seen Mandalay Bay hotel records that have been turned over to investigators said Wednesday they show Stephen Paddock asked for the two-room suite on the 32nd floor when he checked in last Thursday. The room wasn’t available until Saturday and he moved into it then and opened fire from it the next night, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. A person who has seen Mandalay Bay hotel records that have been turned over to investigators said Wednesday they show Stephen Paddock asked for the two-room suite on the 32nd floor when he checked in last Thursday. The room wasn’t available until Saturday and he moved into it then and opened fire from it the next night, killing dozens and wounding hundreds.

If he moved rooms on Saturday, the issue of housekeeping not entering his room seems to be a dead one. The hotel clearly knew a safety check was not needed as he was alive and able to move rooms. If he was only in the shooting suite from Saturday until Sunday, I doubt a do not disturb sign would raise a red flag.

This raises a question to me: Did he wait until Saturday to bring in his weapons and tools, or did he bring them to his first room and then move them to the shooting suite on Saturday. Surely the hotel's video cameras would show that.

Also investigators would have searched his first room as well. While the room would have been cleaned for the next guest, did the housekeepers or next guest find anything unusual to report?\

Wynn phrases the question of motive a little differently, and I think the distinction is significant. Instead of asking what his motive was, he asks what message he was trying to send by his acts:

“This is a man who behaved rationally, privately, a little introverted, liked to play video poker. But he was a rational man. And every historical review of his behavior indicates that he was a rational man; so was his girlfriend. And yet he prepared over an extended period of time, a totally irrational act.

“Now, this sounds like someone either totally demented -- a behavior which he never evidenced -- or someone who's sending a message. This is a plan. We don't know what that message is or if there is one, but this behavior, according to my employees, is as stunning, as unexpected as anybody, any of them have ever met.

One comment of Wynn's seemed to be out of the blue, which suggests to me he has a lot of inside information from law enforcement that we don't have. He mentioned that in his hotel, guests are not allowed to use the service elevators unaccompanied by some member of the staff. Why would he just throw that in unless he had information that either Paddock (or a visitor to his room) had used the service elevator? Is that how he moved his suitcases from the first suite to the next? Or is that how the female who may have visited him arrived or left?

In the Marilou Danley department, Philippine news reported over the weekend that her faith-healer brother, Reynaldo Bustos, who gave an interview to ABC (warning: autoplay video) has not been seen since Thursday. His wife says someone came and picked him up and he never returned. Is he in hiding or was he kidnapped? (He practices hilot, the ancient Filipino art of healing, and herbal medicine.)

I personally think Marilou had nothing to do with the shooting plot but I wonder why Paddock gave her a ticket to the Philippines rather than Australia. She left the Philippines in the 1970's with her daughter and moved to Australia. She married a man name Darcy (a boxer 30 years older than her who died in 2003). They divorced in the 1980's and she moved to the U.S. in 1989 or 1990 and has lived here ever since. Her brother said she had not been back to the Philippines since 2012. He said the money he wired her was for a business, not a home. She told authorities it was for a home, although she didn't say it was for a home in the Philippines.
He and she don't speak the same language, so that might account for that difference, but still, whose account was the money wired to? Did she even have a bank account in the Philippines? Did she have a bank account in Hong Kong, and go there to deposit the funds or retrieve them?

What was the point of the Las Vegas Police in its interview on 60 minutes? The departmenet would not have sent four cops unless it wanted to get a message out. I don't believe for a minute the cop who claimed he could read the note on the "nightstand" and that he saw it contained numbers he recognized as height distances and shooting calculations. Either he learned that afterwards, or it's a lie, the numbers were something else (like phone numbers) and the police wanted this version of the note out there so as not to tip off anyone whose phone numbers were on the paper.

The FBI has a cryptanalysis unit called the CRRU (Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit) that specializes analyzing handwritten notes. While I personally don't trust their results (especially when they use it for drug rather than gambling records), that is the unit that will decide what his writing meant, not a local Las Vegas police officer who saw it for a few seconds or minutes. (Also, it was not on a "nightstand" but an octagonal table near his shooting set-up. It also had something on top of it, so how much of it could he see unless he picked it up to read it. Was he wearing gloves?)

ISIS continues to insist it has a connection to Paddock. I am not discounting it. Paddock had so many cameras, it seems to me he could have recorded himself shooting, and during his pause in shooting, or in the time between he stopped shooting and when police entered the room, sent the video somewhere and then erased it. I doubt he shared ISIS' reasons for attacks, I think he was sending his own message, but I wouldn't be surprised if he turned to them for guidance.

One other question I have that I haven't seen raised. The concert had been going on for hours. Jason Aldean was the last performer. I've seen reports that the shooting began during his final song. Why did he wait until the very end of the show to start shooting? How much had the crowd thinned by then? I think the "22,000" number is the number of people who attended the three day festival, not the number watching Jason Aldean at the show's end. Surely the crowd has thinned out.

As for a plan of escape, who escapes in slippers, which is what he was wearing in the photo showing his dead body? I think the Sheriff believes he was going to try and shoot his way out. He might have been able to hold police at bay for hours that way, but escape? I don't think so.

What was he doing after he shot the guard and before the police entered his room? The shooting had stopped. Was he erasing his camera footage and phone and computer contents? Destroying evidence that might identify anyone who gave him guidance?

CNN got a copy of Paddock's 2013 deposition from his slip and fall lawsuit against a casino. It doesn't tell us anything about motive.

As for what Paddock's message might have been, I have no idea. He could have been mad at the world, mad at Las Vegas, mad at the Government or any number of things.

So, I think we can surmise that Paddock wasn't mad at Las Vegas or country music, specifically. Rather, he sounds like a very calculating individual who was seeking an opportunity to inflict maximum mayhem.

that Paddock, or any other mass killer, is a disturbed individual. That implies the shooter has an illness and is not totally responsible for their actions.

Paddock was not some "heat of the moment" killer. He carefully, meticulously and over time developed a plan and worked that plan. There is no sign of disordered thinking or hallucinations or any of the symptoms associated with a disturbed person.

I think we find what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil" so upsetting that we insist that all mass shooters are disturbed or mentally ill. It is like our minds cannot process plain old evil.

ISIS has said it repeatedly almost since the day of the event. It does seem unlikely. OTOH they say he converted recently and his brother had not seen him in several months.

If you game it out it makes sense to me law enforcement might decide to conceal any evidence that would support that idea. It would, even if it was true, rob ISIS of a victory and leave them looking like pathetic wannabes trying to take credit for the work of random madmen.

To be clear I don't think it's likely. But until we know the fact is there is one group offering a motive.

I hope I don't get into speculation trouble here but have we been told the religion of the girl friend? She was in the Philippines.

I have not followed this as closely as others have. Your posts have been helpful.

I just did a quick search of his alleged ISIS connections. Because I had seen it for days. While the first choice was from World Nut Daily there was a long list of other sources with that story from CBS to the GUARDIAN.

and a neighbor in Nevada said she attended Mass there frequently. Her entire family is Christian. The Philippines is largely Christian. There's also a photo of her wearing a red Santa Clause hat on her FB page.

The Philippines proudly boasts to be the only Christian nation in Asia. More than 86 percent of the population is Roman Catholic, 6 percent belong to various nationalized Christian cults, and another 2 percent belong to well over 100 Protestant denominations.

is speculation. Prominent ISIS journalistsat the New York Times, and researchers and analysts at SITE and elsewhere have urged caution in dismissing ISIS's claim. ISIS has made very few false claims, (although one of them is the Manila casino shootings in June, 2017.)

See NY Times journalist Rachel Callimachi's Twitter thread particularly items 9 through 20 or so. One point she makes:

My list is not complete but of the more than 50 cases I have annotated, I could only find 3 false claims.

ISIS has offered not a single bit of evidence to back up its claim about Paddock, not have the authorities found any evidence at all tying ISIS to Paddock. There's also no evidence of ISIS paying Paddock millions of dollars - or $5.

that Jared Loughner was psychotic. And there seems to be a lot of evidence that James Holmes was as well.

With people like Paddock, we're still left with the question as to why some people are not only are utterly bereft of any sense of empathy or soildarity with their fellow humans, but also how and why that lack of empathy morphs into such active, murderous hostility.

He was also allergic to many pills and was unable to renew his pilot's license -- he had flown planes since he was a teenager -- because he could not take the pills needed to reduce his blood pressure.

He was also a germaphobe (but apparently had no problem touching the screens of video poker games in the casino -- odd.)

Much of his background is coming from his brother. Remains to be seen how trustworty it is.

According to NBC News, Marilou Danley told federal investigators that Paddock would sometimes lie in bed and scream.
�She said he would lie in bed, just moaning and screaming, �Oh, my God,'� a former FBI official who had been briefed on the case told the news outlet.

Danley also reportedly said her boyfriend was displaying �mental health symptoms,� but the report does not specify what symptoms exactly.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Paddock was prescribed an anti-anxiety medication in June of this year.

it wasn't in her lawyer's statement. It comes from an anonymous law enforcement source.

As to the Valium, he only had two prescriptions for it in over a year, the last one being months ago. It was for 50 10 mg pills. (According to records of the Nevada state prescription data monitoring database which is supposed to be confidential -- I'd like to see an investigation of who leaked it it to Las Vegas paper.) No one knows if he even took them, and Casino owner Steve Winn said he's not a drinker. He also said in a deposition he doesn't drink and gamble -- since everything he bought was paid for with his gambling cards at the hotels, they surely would have records of drinks he ordered. While using Valium and drinking is not recommended, it should be noted that Valium is prescribed to alcoholics undergoing withdrawal (which he was not.)

There's a Finnish study that found young males who committed big crimes may have taken valium. For someone his age, I think it's more likely it would put him to sleep, not make him crazy. How many people here have never taken a valium in their lives? Billions of valium are prescribed yearly by Roche and probably billions more of generics. Has there ever been a mass killing committed by someone under the influence of only Valium?

"When people say aggressive behavior can be related to Valium, they're usually talking about very, very young people or the elderly. In them, it can cause something called delirium--basically someone becomes disinhibited and confused, which then might make them aggressive," Yupei Hu, a psychiatrist at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University. [tonic.vice.com]

fifty 10mg pills sounds like `take 1 or 1/2 as needed.' maybe for sleap complaints. a prescription for anxiety would typically be 5mg or 10mg - 3x daily (90 count) or 4x daily (120 count) with authorization for 3 months or 6 months of refills.

anti-anxiety medication (benzos) are the opposite of `planning a terrorist attack.' they make you less inclined to do your homework and more inclined to chat with people and to eat chocolate cake and chunky monkey icecream.

are built into the bar, and you can play there too, while sitting down. Maybe he used gloves. My grandmother used gloves playing the one armed bandits when she passed through Reno.

Years ago I knew Steve Wynn, the owner of Mandalay Resort, where this horrible event happened, back when he first started in Las Vegas. He used to come ski in Aspen, and finally got quite good. He is a great guy

I met him once as well, but I think it was in Las Vegas, not Aspen, and only for a minute.

I don't think he owns the Mandalay Bay -- that's owned by MGM -- in his interview he says this would never have happened at one of his hotels. But I was wrong to describe him as the owner of the Mirage -- he sold it in 2000 to what is now known as MGM Resorts International. Currently both the Mandalay and Mirage are owned by MGM. His resorts are now called "Wynn Resorts." Here's his Wikipedia page and the page for Wynn Resorts..

Two other interesting things about him: He has been officially blind since 2010. He was diagnosed in 1971 with retinitis pigmentosa, which causes gradual vision loss. In 2013, he gave $25 million to the University of Iowa to fund stem cell research into a cure for degenerative eye diseases.

He's also a lifelong Republican and current finance chairman for the Republican party.

Mandalay Ranch in Aspen that was owned by Peter Guber who is famous for a long line of popular Hollywood films. I've been out of the film business too long. I've been in the hurricane business too long as well. They can scramble the mind.

Why do people tend to equate mental illness with hallucinations, disordered thinking or insanity? Since like any other illness, mental illness can present itself in varying degrees, it only follows that one can be a disturbed individual without also being dysfunctional or antisocial.

Hannah Arendt was correct about "the banality of evil." When evil is personified, it's rarely offered to us in caricature form like a live-action Snidely Whiplash. More often than not, we are first disarmed by the person's apparent normality or even banality.

People who knew the serial killers Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy recounted being taken in by their sociability, and not having a clue as to what was ultimately in store for their victims.

But that said, and speaking for myself only, I think that one doesn't have to hallucinate or have disorderly thinking to nevertheless be disturbed. Personally, I believe that anyone who deliberately contemplates, plots and carries out the mass slaying of large numbers of people in public can rightly be described as very disturbed.

Of course, Stephen Paddock likely knew right from wrong. So, too, did Omar Mateen, the Pulse Nightclub shooter. At the end, for whatever their reasons, they just didn't care.

i think we to often avoid considering it because the idea that someone can simply be a bad seed somehow reflects on the enitre human race we so love to see as all well meaning if sometimes lost soles.

i had also wondered about health issues. brain tumors or some mental break. but its been in process for a long time. a lot of thought went into it. its said he intended to escape so complete lucidity seems unlikely at the end.

we stop trying to figure out what's really going on with people like Paddock, because there are just these bad seeds out there that crop up occasionally and there's nothing anyone can do about? Shit happens and that's all we know and ever need to know?

The 1966 Austin tower shooter, Charles Whitman, was found to have a pecan sized tumor in his brain, although it wasn't established it caused his acts. I assume Paddock had an autopsy but I haven't read about it yet.

For all we know, this is a person who thought accumulating a small fortune would get him some kind of recognition - and when it didn't, decided to put together a plan to show people just how smart and skilled he is.

Remember, this is someone it is believed planned to escape - meaning, he intended to survive this attack, and be able to get his fill of people talking about him and marveling at his arsenal and his plan.

Maybe he was a nobody who thought he deserved to be a somebody, and this is how he decided to do that.

The gunman who killed 58 people in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history targeted aviation fuel tanks, stockpiled his car with explosives and had personal protection gear as part of an escape plan, the Clark County sheriff said Monday.

he was trying to control a bump-stock fitted rifle while being subjected to the loud report of a rifle fired indoors. the room was filling with smoke and gun powder. the gun was heating up and barrel glowing orange. the first gun jams and he restarts with a second gun... i would imagine it to be exhausing.